Our objective on this trip is to navigate the old way, using an Atlas. It isn’t practical to use our GPS devices anyway. The GPS will map us on the fastest and most direct route, which will take us down interstates, bypassing the old Route 66. We are relying on several guidebooks we purchased along with the 10-year-old National Geographic atlas that has been sliding around the back of our car since its purchase. What we have learned already is that following a map the old way isn’t terribly difficult. It wasn’t too long ago in our lives when that was the only way to find our way. I will say that anyone one wants to attempt this will benefit from having a good navigator. Virginia is great at keeping me on the right road. The only trouble we have is passing through big cities. Sticking to the old road is time consuming and challenging pulling a trailer through heavy traffic and lots of stoplights. Route 66 doesn’t follow a single road, so I have to watch for the “66” shield to indicate turns to navigate through the city. We’ve discovered that many signs are missing, were never placed, or due to road construction, we miss, and so we get lost. I learned on our way out on Route 6 that I didn’t have the patience to follow the old road through Denver, Lincoln, Omaha, Des Moines, and Chicago. It was in the big, congested cities that I felt justified jumping onto the interstates to avoid the nasty surface street traffic.
There are lots of quirky roadside attractions like this one in Joliet Illinois, standing atop a Dairy Queen ice cream stand. Much of the Blues Brothers was set in Joliet.
We parked the trailer at a casino RV park in Joliet, Illinois and drove the 4Runner into downtown Chicago to get a photo for the start of our journey on South Michigan Avenue and East Adams Street. It took several hours making our way back to Joliet following the historic road signs through the city. It wasn’t until Joliet that we started seeing interesting landmarks.
At the starting point on Adams Street in downtown Chicago.
Route 66 has far more character than Route 6. Our guidebooks alert us to the historic, cultural, quirky, and fun things to do along the way. It takes hours to see and visit all the sites. Our first day of driving took us most of the day to go 160 miles from Joliet to Springfield, Illinois. There is so much to see in Springfield that we spent two nights, camping at the fairgrounds. The Lincoln Museum is fabulous. We also visited the Lincoln Home National Historic Park and the Lincoln tomb. Springfield Illinois is all about Lincoln.
The Lincoln tomb in Springfield Illinois.
We live in troubled times, and this trip has allowed me to pull away from social media and most of my news feeds. It’s relaxing to see that life around me continues without weighing all the problems and crises of our world. Several days ago, it occurred to me that while I visited the Herbert Hoover National Historic Park, The Lincoln Museum, the Ulysses Grant National Historic Park, that we’ve been through hard times before. In fact, we’ve been through much worse times before. We are a resilient people. We are smart and resourceful. We’ll get through this and much more. The more I study history, I’m reminded of the incredible good we are all capable of. I suppose, once again, that it is through adversity that we grow. In some ways, I feel more confident moving forward knowing that we’ve already been through tough times. Great men and women have always risen at the time of greatest need. No doubt that will yet play out in our future.
There are patches where the old road still exists. Some stretches are concrete and go clunkety clunk as we pass by, and other pieces of the road are paved in brick. The brick really rattled our car and trailer as we drove over.
It was a shorter drive from Springfield to St. Louis, but it still took us most of the day because there were so many small sections of the road we had to locate and explore. We’ve decided to follow the original route that is marked as the 1926-1930 alignment. After 1930, the road was already being moved around towns and cities by using cutoffs. It’s the old storefronts and establishments that are interesting to us, and that requires us to pass through the heartbeat of Main Street USA.
The county courthouse in Carlinville Illinois
Fun sights around St. Louis included the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Park, where we walked among the largest and oldest Pre-Columbian archeological sites north of Mexico, The Gateway Arch National Park, The Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Park, Forest Park (site of the 1904 World’s Fair), and the Missouri Botanical Garden. We happened to visit the botanical garden at the height of the azalea bloom. The gardens were fabulous.
Cahokia Mounds State Park, Illinois
The Gemini Giant in Willmington Illinois. I wish I had a picture of me with him to give you a sense of scale. I’m over 6’ tall and I come up to about his knee.
The Gateway Arch is actually in Missouri, but we camped on the Illinois side of the river and that is where I captured this image.
Lots of vintage service stations can be found along the Route